Not sure about the UK tax laws, but here in the States when they started counting inventory as assets (ie taxable) it made publishers do strange things like remaindering and pulping - cheaper than keeping the books in stock, which now has an annual cost. So if a book title isn't selling quickly, it may make sense to pulp rather than hold on to or remainder (which would flood the market and likely devalue future super-deluxe editions since collectors would just wait for them to go on remainder too).

Urulókë wrote:Not sure about the UK tax laws, but here in the States when they started counting inventory as assets (ie taxable) it made publishers do strange things like remaindering and pulping - cheaper than keeping the books in stock, which now has an annual cost. So if a book title isn't selling quickly, it may make sense to pulp rather than hold on to or remainder (which would flood the market and likely devalue future super-deluxe editions since collectors would just wait for them to go on remainder too).

Could be. Seems a shame to pulp a perfectly good book, but that is the crazy messed-up world we live in. I think it more likely that they offloaded the S&Gs at a reduced price to BD and other retailers, though. CoH probably just finally sold out after 4+ years.

Edit: Using the totally crappy search with just "Hurin" as a keyword, the SuperDuluxe CoH does show up in the list and would appear to be still available. If you search for "Children of Hurin" it brings back about 100 results, the first page of which - at least - are completely irrelevant. Definitely can't find S&G though, but I would put money on that just being down to the website being a turd.

Posted on: 2012/1/14 20:31

(edited)

Edited by Stu on 2012/1/14 21:57:25Edited by Stu on 2012/1/14 21:58:21

It's a shame the book was selling at the same price as COH but with only a cow leather binding instead of full morocco. Still think I'm going to buy it at the Bookdepository at the reduced price. I'm not prepared to wait another two years, though I think the price might go down to around GBP200 in due time. Thanks for the link to the old thread Trotter.